There are many situations in which values of a physical condition, such as temperature and humidity, of a space need to be controlled. Two specific examples are offices where humans work and computer rooms of data centers that contain large arrays of computers and servers. To control the physical conditions, the space is provided with devices, termed environmental maintenance modules, or just modules, capable of modifying one or more of the physical conditions. The modules have one or more adjustable components termed environmental actuators, or just actuators, which control how the modules operate.
Manufacturers typically provide environmental maintenance modules as integral units with built-in controllers and externally accessible and/or adjustable set points for the actuators. These modules are installed in the space to be environmentally controlled, or are at least are functionally connected to that space, for example by ductwork. The set points are selected by an administrator (such as personnel, the data center operations personnel, administrator, owner, decision maker, equipment installer, or similar) to best maintain desired environmental conditions in the managed space. Often there is no communication between the environmental actuators and the environmental sensors in the environmental space to coordinate the actions of all actuators.
A purpose of a supervisory controller is to communicate with many and preferably all environmental actuators and sensors in the environmentally controlled space and to coordinate the actions of all environmental actuators in order to improve overall system performance compared to a system that has no such coordination. A supervisory controller has the potential to improve system responsiveness to critical environmental conditions, to reduce the total power consumption of all environmental actuators, to better manage system wear and tear, and other advantages.
However, the initialization and update of a model used by the supervisory controller for a particular application can be problematic. For example, a model initialization procedure may be time consuming and may need to be done before the system is working. This makes retrofitting a supervisory controller into an environmental management system difficult. Also, if the environmentally controlled space is updated, such as by adding or moving equipment, the model will need to be updated to be accurate.